My New Favorite Show
and my new favorite actor keep me company while I'm home sick
This week has been a doozy. I’ve been home yesterday and today with a head cold, which has actually been….kind of nice? A forced rest? Last night, my husband and I watched the first three episodes of a very good new show called The Franchise, because it stars Himesh Patel, who I think is so good in absolutely everything.
First of all, this is one of my favorites kinds of shows—behind the scenes on a movie set. (If you haven’t watched The TV Set, watch that too!) Second of all, this cast! In addition to Himesh, you’ve got Richard E. Grant, you’ve got the ALWAYS excellent Billy Magnussen, you’ve got Lolly Adefope, you’ve got Aya Cash WHO TOLD ME HERSELF AT THE FRONT COUNTER OF BOOKS ARE MAGIC THAT KIM ADDONIZO IS HER MOTHER. Let’s just pause here and read a Kim Addonizo poem.
To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall BY KIM ADDONIZIO If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever closed your legs to someone you loved opened them for someone you didn’t moved against a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach seaweed clinging to your ankles paid good money for a bad haircut backed away from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled into the back seat for lack of a tampon if you swam across a river under rain sang using a dildo for a microphone stayed up to watch the moon eat the sun entire ripped out the stitches in your heart because why not if you think nothing & no one can / listen I love you joy is coming
That is Aya Cash’s mother! Could you just die of coolness?!
Anyway, The Franchise is great and you should watch it and when you’re done, you can catch up on Himesh’s previous wonderful work, in particular these two (very different) things.
Did you watch the very very good adaptation of my friend Emily St. John Mandel’s excellent novel? You should! Himesh is the heart of it, if you ask me. It will be easier to watch this now than when it came out.
A delightful romp wherein Himesh gets to pretend that he wrote all the Beatles’ songs. I watched it on an airplane and cried and you know what? I’m going to watch it again today. Written by Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral! Perfection.
Yours with love and Mucinex.
Thanks for the recs!! You might need to add The English Teacher (with Julianne Moore & Greg Kinnear) to your sick-in-bed list!
How neat the Internet experience can be! I’ve adored Kim Addonizio’s poems for several years and she mentions her daughter in more than one. To see the two of them mentioned in your newsletter is a wonderful bonus. And off the movie theme but staying with poetry, Addonizio’s “What Do Women Want?” is a particular favourite.